Tag Archives: New York

I’m not sure traffic in New York — or at least in Manhattan — is as bad as everyone says. Then again, I live in downtown Toronto so what do I know? The subway has a lot better coverage than in Toronto. And the grid of one way streets is effective. Cars don’t get stuck at one light … and then the next … and then the next. And pedestrians only have to worry about traffic coming from one direction.

Bicycle on Broadway viewed from Union Square.

Traffic cops.

Exiting the subway.

Helicopter taking off from the West 30th Street Heliport.

Trains at the Hudson Rail Yards.

Vertical parking lot.

Empty vodka bottle in garbage can. Could the traffic have something to do with this?

I didn’t have time to sniff out really good examples of street art when I was visiting Manhattan. I suspect that if I were a tourist visiting Toronto, I’d have the same problem in reverse. I wouldn’t know where to look. Nevertheless, I saw what I saw and share it here:

Photographing buildings in Manhattan is a challenge, or at least it was for me last week, and for two reasons. First, I didn’t have the right gear, only my little mirrorless Fujifilm camera and a pancake lens. Second, even if I had the right gear, buildings in Manhattan have been shot to death. What could I possibly say that’s original or interesting? So I side-stepped the question. Instead of photographing buildings, I photographed people (since I was really there to do street photography anyways) and was mindful of buildings lurking in the background to give the people context. Here are some of the results.

Man sitting on fire hose connection with Flatiron Building in background

From smartphones to camcorders to DSLRs, digital devices have become so ubiquitous, it’s like they’re everywhere. I observe (ironically) with my own digital device, and share (hypocritically?) through digital media. It’s almost impossible now to find a non-digital vantage point from which to observe.

When I think of commerce in New York, I tend to think of Wall Street, but there’s commerce on the ground, too: people doing whatever it takes to earn a living. Here are samples that run the gamut from shoppers in the flagship store of the world’s most valuable corporation to buskers in Washington Square Park.

I just got back from three nights in Manhattan. I was able to devote two and a half days to intensive loitering as me and my mirrorless camera honed our street photography skills. Street photography in Manhattan is like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s so easy. I can think of a number of reasons why this is the case.

The first and most obvious reason is the intensity of pedestrian traffic. With so many people on the streets, it produces a continuous stream of interactions and exchanges–the dramatic subject matter of street photography.